Ben visits Italy!

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Last week Ben came to visit! I picked him up from the Saturday afternoon loaded him with gelato to get over his jet lag and took him all around the city. We walked up Piazza Michelangelo and I showed him the best view of Florence, its a hike but well worth it. Then we wandered around as I pointed out my school, fun cafes, and shops. We visited Piazza Signoria where there are some great Florentine sculptures then stopped at a cute English pub for a glass of wine. Then we walked about the city for a bit and went back to my apartment where I finally got to introduce ben to housemate. I was so excited to finally have all my friends meet Ben!! After resting our legs after a long day we got all dressed up and went out to this really nice restaurant right on the Arno river. It was a very posh restaurant that gave us complimentary champagne while we waited for our table, sat down ordered a bottle of the house wine and struck up conversation with some waiters. We shared some Bruschetta and once our dinner came we nearly fell off our chair at the gigantic plates of pasta topped with tons of shell fish, Ben ordered Gnocchi dosed in cheesey pasta sauce, we were so full but it was a great introduction to Italian food for Benj 😊 Afterwards we met up with my roommate Sajel and he sister and friend were visiting last week as well. The 5 of us went to this great Enoteca (winebar) where we know the owners and they set up a nice table for us outside and pointed out some of their favorite bottles. We sat there for the rest of the night exchanging stories, laughs, met some locals, and had a great time. The week flew from there, one day we took a trip to Chianti and went to a wine tasting, climbed up mountains in the country side and spent the whole day admiring the vineyards and beautiful weather. I took him to one of my favorite restaurants so I could introduce him to his first Italian pizza. Luckily I have a boyfriend who loves food as much as I do so I knew he would not be disappointed, and he loved it! Thin, fresh, simple pizza with a glass of red wine to compliment, you cant go wrong. For the last 3 days we took a train down to Rome and spent 1 night there soaking up the history. Ben was in heaven at the Coliseum since he loves history especially stories of the Romans. The Roman Forum, The Vatican, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters Cathedral. By the end of the day our feet were shot so we stopped at a nice little irish pub, sat outside and enjoyed some pints, then headed back to our hotel to get dressed up for a fancy dinner. We enjoyed some fresh pasta, bread, wine, and chicken. It was a small trattoria packed shoulder to shoulder with people we sat between two older couples one from england and the other from germany, I don't know if it was because the tables were so close we were basically sitting with them or the wine made us all exceptionally friendly, but the next thing we knew it was hours later and we were all deep into conversation about traveling, they were such nice people who had obviously traveled a lot and told us stories from their favorite places, we were nearly in tears many times laughing so hard, it was a very fun night. The next day ben and I took the train back to Florence, and spent his last day/night in italy wandering around Florence, around 1030 we headed to this underground music club ive been wanting to try out, little did i know it was oasis night and this place was famous for their great Oasis coverband, it was a perfect ending, the band was AMAZING, it was a underground london style music club and everyone was super nice, dancing and singing. The best way to finish off Bens trip. It was amazing having Ben visit me in Italy, a piece of my heart from home 😊

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